Above water by Trish Kearney

In 2019, in the aftermath of her mother’s death, Trish Kearney wrote the story that had burned inside her for decades – but which she could not until then commit to paper. In her moving memoir, Trish writes about the child she once was, a great Irish Olympic hope, growing up in a happy family who nurtured her talent – only to have her potential destroyed by years of abuse by her coach, a man trusted by her family. She describes how suppressed memories of those torturous times resurfaced as a young mother, and the day her life changed when a letter from former team-mate and friend Gary O’Toole came through the post, asking an unspoken question which paved the way for Gibney being publicly exposed. Trish was one of the six swimmers who charged the top Irish swim coach with sexual abuse offences in 1992.